Based on well-proven in-house technology, Aalborg Industries introduced in 2009 the new business area “Exhaust Gas Cleaning” launching new and cost-saving sulphur emission abatement technologies to clean exhaust gas from ship engines as an alternative to lowering the fuel sulphur content.

New international requirements
From 01 January 2010, ships berthing within the EU are required to use fuel with a maximum sulphur content of 0.1%.

For ships delivered after 2016, the SOx emission must be reduced with 80% in sensitive areas (Emission Control Areas) – at present the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the English Channel, but from 2010 this also involves the coasts of North America – and the sulphur content in fuel oil must be reduced to 0.5% globally in 2020 and to 0.1% in 2015 in sensitive areas (ECA).

To comply with these new international requirements, shipowners must switch to fuel with low or no sulphur content or instigate cleaning of the ship’s exhaust gases.

Main product and competences
With Aalborg Industries’ exhaust gas scrubber it is possible to clean the exhaust gas from the ship’s main and aux. engines by washing the exhaust gas with seawater or freshwater added caustic soda.

Cleaning of ships’ exhaust gases is a vital and cost-saving alternative and a supplement to using fuel with low or no sulphur content. Apart from cleaning SOx emissions, the exhaust gas scrubbers have also proved to be more effective in removing harmful particles from exhaust gases of diesel engines when compared to switching solely to low sulphur fuels.

Using water, scrubbers can be used for washing the exhaust gas from the main engine of the ship and can in principle be compared to a large shower cabinet placed in the funnel of a ship. The major environmental benefit from the scrubbing system is the fact that both seawater and freshwater added caustic soda can be used for the scrubbing. This makes the scrubbing process more environmentally safe than using chemicals to clean the exhaust gas of emissions.

Building on Experience
Aalborg Industries has supplied scrubbers for tankers for several years producing inactive flue gas to direct into the oil tanks preventing explosion. This way, flue gas from boilers is sent through a scrubber where it is cooled down and cleaned before directed into the oil tanks. This means that exhaust gas cleaning in scrubbers is a well-known technology and one of our core competences. Our qualifications are also high when it comes to adapting products to operation after diesel engines, since we are market leading within delivery of exhaust gas-fired boilers placed in the funnel of a ship. Therefore, it was very natural to initiate development of scrubbers for diesel engines.

Contacts

exhaust-gas-cleaning@aalborg-industries.com